"I knew you'd come back," a voice said from the darkness, sending Frank's hand toward his gun.
"Don't shoot me. I ain't armed."
A shadow moved in the pines west of the graveyard.
"Who the hell are you?" Frank demanded.
"We talked when you rode into town, mister. I was here when you said you saw one of the Old Ones."
Frank's gun hand relaxed. "What the hell are you doing out here this time of night, old-timer?" he asked.
"Visitin' my daughter."
"Your daughter?"
"She's buried here. Died from the consumption. Sometimes I come out here just so's I can be close to her. Makes me feel better."
The old man he'd seen beside the fence earlier in the day walked up to him.
"Sorry about your daughter," Frank said.
"It's been two years, nearly. Can't sleep at night without thinkin' about her before I drop off."
"The galloping consumption is a hard thing ... a rough way to die," Frank said.
"She went fast. Less'n two months after we found out she came down with it."
Frank understood the old man's grief ... _he'd_ lost a wife to a coward's bullet. "It's hard to lose a loved one, no matter what the cause."
"I asked around in town after you got here, mister. They say you're Frank Morgan the gunfighter. Ol' Man Barnes at the hotel told me. An' Smitty recognized you when you came to the hotel."
"I don't make a living with a gun now," Frank said. "I gave all that up years ago."
"But you was askin' about Ned Pine an' Vic Vanbergen. That don't sound like you come here with peaceable intentions, if you pardon me for sayin' so."
It had begun to seem that Frank's past would haunt him for the rest of his life. He stared across the moonlit cemetery a moment. "They killed my wife and took my son hostage. I got my boy back, but I still owe them a debt ... a blood debt, and I aim to see that they pay it."
"Then you _are_ a killer."
Frank's jaw muscles went tight. "If I can find Vanbergen and Pine, I intend to kill them for what they did to my Vivian, and to Conrad."
"Could be I can tell you where to find 'em," the old man said.
Frank turned around abruptly. "Where?"
The man aimed a thumb toward the snow-clad peaks north of Glenwood Springs. "Up yonder. Doc ... that's Doc Holliday, he knows where they're at."
"Would he tell me?" Frank asked, feeling his blood begin to boil.
"Can't say fer sure, Mr. Morgan. But you can ask him for yourself, if you've a mind to."
"Where is Holliday?"
"At the sanitarium."
"Where is it?"
"Just ride down to the river an' turn east. You'll see it plain as day."
"I'll do it first thing in the morning."
"Doc, he's cranky as hell, but he's in a lot of pain, so they say."
"All I want to know is where I can find Vanbergen and Pine," Frank explained.
"Doc knows 'em. Leastways he knows where they go to hide out from the law."
"I appreciate what you've told me," Frank said.
The old-timer turned toward town. "That Ned Pine, he ain't no good. If there's a sumbitch in Colorado who deserves to die, it's him."
"What's your name?" Frank asked as the old man walked off.
"They call me George. I reckon that's all you need to know."
A moment later George was out of sight around a bend in the road. Frank made up his mind to talk to Doc Holliday right after sunrise.
As he was about to head back to the hotel he saw a slight movement in the pine trees behind the burial ground. Again, he reached for his pistol.
A shape appeared, a slender man dressed in buckskins. He walked with a swinging gait toward the rear of the cemetery and then he stopped.
Small hairs swirled on the back of Frank's neck. He was looking at the same Indian he'd seen when he came into Glenwood Springs this afternoon.
"Who are you?" Frank shouted.
No one answered him and the Indian did not move.
"I asked you a question," Frank called. "Who the hell are you?"
A soft voice spoke to him, even though the Indian was more than a hundred yards away beyond the cemetery fence.
"Go to the mountains."
Frank wrapped his fingers around the butt of his Colt Peacemaker ... an odd sensation touched some inner part of him, one he couldn't explain.
"Walk around here so I can see your face," he said.
"Go to the mountains," the Indian said again.
"What for?" Frank asked.
"To find the men you seek. Ride to Ghost Valley."
"Why should I take any advice from you, and how is it you know I'm looking for anybody? You won't even tell me who the hell you are."
"I am One Who Came Before. We are called Anasazi. This is all you need to know."
"But how is it that you know I'm looking for a couple of men?"
"Go to the mountains," the Indian said for the third time. "One of the men you seek is behind you now." Then he wheeled away and disappeared into the forest.
"Damn," Frank whispered. He gave some thought to following the Indian. Or was this all a product of his imagination?
Frank glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see a man cradling a shotgun walking toward him from the direction of Glenwood Springs.
"Are you Frank Morgan?" the man cried, bringing the shotgun to his shoulder. Frank wasted no time drawing his pistol, aiming it, drawing back the Colt's hammer.
"I asked you a question, you son of a bitch!"
"Here's my answer," Frank bellowed. His trigger finger curled.
A shot rang out, echoing off the mountainsides surrounding the cemetery.
The stranger with the shotgun stumbled, staggering to keep his footing. He fired a load of buckshot into the ground before he fell to his knees.
Frank rushed forward, reaching the gunman just before he went over on his back.
"Where's Vanbergen? Where's Pine?" Frank demanded with his gun clamped in his fist.
The bearded cowboy lay motionless with blood leaking from a wound in his chest. His eyes batted shut.
"How the hell did you know I was here?" Frank asked, knowing the man would never answer him.
He put his smoking six-shooter away and headed back toward town. He would have to report the incident to the local sheriff and if possible, get the dead man's identity.
Somehow, Pine and Vanbergen already knew he was here, hot on their trail. But what puzzled Frank most was how the Indian had known that a member of the gang was coming for him.
--------
*Five*
Sheriff Tom Brewer looked down at the body in the light of a coal-oil lantern. "Can't say as I've ever seen him in Glenwood Springs before."
" He tried to kill me with that shotgun," Frank said. "I had no choice."
Brewer glanced up at Frank. "I heard you was in town, Mr. Morgan. I know your reputation. You're a killer for hire, a paid shootist. I won't tolerate that in my jurisdiction."
"It was self-defense, Sheriff."
"I reckon I'll have to take your word for it, unless there was any witnesses."
"None. An old man who said his name was George was here before this gunslick showed up, only he left before the trouble started."